


sadness is a human construct

by whytho



Category: Paranatural (Webcomic)
Genre: haha character studies? i think you mean i have no idea what my life is any more, it's one am and i'm listening to mother mother, this is meant to be told by suzy but it's not really clear
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-27
Updated: 2015-12-27
Packaged: 2018-05-09 17:01:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5548334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whytho/pseuds/whytho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>it is very hard to fix the problems in a person. it is even harder to acknowledge them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	sadness is a human construct

**Author's Note:**

> it's very late and i am very tired. also cold. cold and tired; not a great combination. 
> 
> as per usual, this is probs horrible. also unedited. i wrote it in like three hours of sadness.

You was well aware that people were sometimes not totally alright inside. Your older sister used to balance on the brink of mania and disaster while seeming perfectly fine, and sometimes you feel like you need to make things topple over. But Maxwell Puckett- and the people around him- are almost past the edge. 

You have known about Isabel for a long time. Back when you were still holding a grudge against her, and when Colin wasn’t around to stop you from pushing over a few dominoes, you would steal her school files every other Tuesday. Each time, there would be another note added to the papers, about her anger or fear or containment of feelings. You would pore over sentences about her talks with the guidance counselor (a lovely person, really, but they had no idea what any of it was like). Even so, Isabel laughs and jokes like a sea isn’t churning underneath her, and she dances through life without caring about breaking the floor. Her smile never wavers, even when it is colored with rain and night and fear. 

Ed is different. He mastered himself, contained his oddities until they could be something viewed as almost normal. People think he’s weird, but they don’t think it’s uncouth; they see it as a facet of his personality, almost calculated to make people like him. In reality it is more likely what makes Ed himself: it is what forged him and shaped him and keeps him pressed together. In return, Ed kept it squeezed it close inside him and made it into himself. Ed smiles like the world can see him breaking, but means it anyways. 

Sometimes at lunch you watch him, peering over a table to see him with Jeff and Cody and Lisa and Violet and maybe sometimes Max, and you can tell that he always half a second behind everyone else. Ed can never laugh at jokes at just the right time, and says things people can’t quite keep up with. He is a storm unto himself, but one that doesn’t blow winds or drip rain or touch anyone at all.

Isabel takes him by the hand and makes sure he stays on path, that he strings his words so everyone can understand. And sometimes she follows him off the path, too, but they’re together so it never really matters for them. 

Isaac, you think, is probably the closest thing to normal the Activity Club’s got. He smiles and laughs a lot. He gets angry sometimes, a little moody, but he is perfectly ready to blow it out at any second. He will gather all his anger and let it out in one breathe, even the sort that has been building up for a long time. If someone pricks him, he does not pop or explode, he just deflates.When the rest of the Activity Club is ready to burst, someone will wind him up, and they would all flatten out right after he does.

The Activity Club is breakable, but easily put back together. It is a puzzle with pieces that are connected to all the other parts, that can fit together in so many different ways. Johnny’s Gang, on the other hand, is made up of glue: once it sticks together, it cannot be taken apart again. 

You aren’t in the same circles as Johnny’s Gang (they are far more interested in destroying things than piecing words together) but you have seen them in the streets sometimes, long after dark. You know that Johnny can smile when he really means it, when he looks at RJ’s photos or the fuzz in Ollie's head, and you know that it can be very hard to find him doing that. Johnny is like an elusive beast, slipping out of your grasp with feelings that he means, with all of his being, but can’t get across to you. Johnny is sincere with everything he does, even if he smiles and hides behind hair gel and stories and friendship. It is something very hard for people to realize, sometimes, that when he says something he doesn’t mean exactly what they think he does. Johnny is not angry, but he is alight and burning and fine with punching you in the face. 

His friends are the air surrounding his fire. They are clear and cold and even if you don’t understand how four people can link themselves to each other, you know that the Jhonny Crew knows each other better than they know themselves. RJ is quiet with all the thoughts in their head, in sepia and pastels and shades of raspberry. They smile beneath their hood, where almost no one can see, and when the group of them runs through the hills at midnight they will always be right at their heels, rushing across grass and stones. 

Stephen is angry and brash, like he will shout and scream at anything he touches. He contains it in a way that Johnny can’t, by letting it all out so everyone will see. He will yell and light the sky on fire for them, you know, but he will never let it touch the land or horizon. 

Ollie is the light underneath the glass, the calming force in the gang. He will stop Stephen from burning the world, and he will let RJ get the words across, and he will make sure Johnny knows the significance behind sincerity. Burying the flames is Ollie’s job, and sometimes it is Ollie’s job to blow them back up again. 

On a planet of his own is Maxwell Puckett. Sarcasm and jibe are his weapons as much as they are his shields, you think. He uses words like knives, to keep people away from actually touching him. You saw him with his family once, in an attempt to learn more about him for the school newspaper, and even with his father Max was almost standoffish. Maybe standoffish isn’t the right word; Max is reserved with his father, like he doesn’t want him to see all his secrets. Instead, he rolls his eyes and ducks out of hugs and doesn’t let his father touch him. He does that to everyone: he lays out trenchant articulation as a line of defense, and no one can quite cross it. So he floats from person to person, day to day and moment to moment, and none of them can truly reach him. 

You have never once seen Max smile like he truly means it.

**Author's Note:**

> okay so like? i can't remember a single panel in which max smiles like he's actually happy and feels some joy. in the entire comic. and that makes me emotional.
> 
> also these poor babies are so??? sad?? except they're not actually they could be very well adjusted little tinies but it's late and and I would like to read some twenty chapter pnat fics with angst and good character analysis so maybe i'm projecting.


End file.
